How Do You Think We Could Cut Costs In Our Health Care System?

As most of you who read this blog on a regular basis know, I have been serving on an online panel for The Washington Post regarding this whole subject of changing or improving health care in our country. It’s a huge subject and today I don’t want to get lost in the muck and mire of trying to sludge through this whole issue. I, also, do not want to turn this blog, which I started to address living with chronic pain, to become a political one. Neither do I want it to be a religious one, a sexist one or a reality TV show; there is enough reality in living with daily pain. Everyone is welcome here and I don’t want to do anything that will estrange anyone who needs to visit us. That said, however, I am a resolute believer in free speech

I spend a great deal of my limited energy writing for and responding to this blog. I usually write this on my laptop while lying down due to my own health problems. Needless to say, it means a great deal to me and I believe over the last three years it has brought together many wonderful individuals who suffer and brought to light many amazing solutions and answers for living with pain. I hope it has been an inspiration to many thousands more regular readers. I have developed faith in all of you, deep respect and affection for you and value your opinions. That is why I am bringing the question from the weekly Washington Post Health Care Rx to all of you. I want your opinions. Let me warn you that your replies will be posted, as usual but I’ll be pointing back to this post with a link from my Washington Post blog. We will, as always, protect your privacy. I’m the only one out there with my full name for all to see; therefore I will get the “slings and arrows.”

As usual, I have my opinions but they don’t necessarily have to be yours. That’s what‘s so amazing and wonderful about America; we can agree to disagree without malice. In this instance, most of you have been in the health care system for a few or many years. You have experienced the good and the ill of our system. You and I who live with chronic illness, injury and resulting chronic pain have personal knowledge of the medical system. Many of you are former and current medical personnel, as am I. Others of you have been ill a long time and have many opinions to share. With the subject of health care being a major one in the news right now there is much debate about the enormous costs of setting up a new system. Many fear the enormous debt and resulting taxation that would result and are worried that along with the already existing deficits, could bankrupt our country. There is much confusion and skepticism about the government getting involved in our health care. The question the panel at The Post will be addressing this week “Is it possible to rein in costs in the current system and if so, how?” How do you think we can do this? If you were in charge, what would you do besides throwing up your hands in despair or just plain throwing up?

To get your thoughts rolling I will share with you a few things that I have observed as both a patient and an RN. The first factor that comes to me is the high cost of drugs. Why should a drug cost $300 or more? I have a relative with pulmonary hypertension and the medication she needs to save her life is going to cost $50,000 a year. Fortunately, they were able to apply for a grant. When you‘re hospitalized the costs are enormous for everything from a box of Kleenex for $10.00 to an IV drug for an astronomical fee. I realize this isn’t much compared to the trillion dollars needed for complete change of our health care system. I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t even count that high. Now we take these huge numbers for granted. The last time I had to be hospitalized I had a nurse, who couldn’t place a urinary catheter, yet she was very worried about the sterile factor; therefore, each time she screwed up she went out to get a new catheter kit. I was billed for each of those kits. It was easy to figure out the money wasn’t going into paying nurses because the call lights at a large hospital I was in were rarely answered. Something is wrong when they can’t staff a post operative floor better than that, don’t you think? I know the nurses are totally frustrated under those circumstances.

There is a huge; I mean huge, abuse of our emergency rooms. Both Jim and I have seen drug addicts who pop into ER’s to get drugs. They claim pain and the ER doc who doesn’t want a lawsuit, trouble or vexation issues a prescription. Then the addict returns again and again. No wonder those of us who are truly in pain are doubted by our doctors and providers? I have seen mothers enter the ER late at night with 4 or 5 small children with colds to have them treated at the ER. First of all, why are those sick children out at midnight when they should be in bed? The second question is why they do not go to their own doctor or if they do not have a doctor, why not wait until morning and go to an urgent care or public health clinic? This behavior is straining the hospitals to the breaking point as well as those who have Medicaid offered by the state, driving it to the brink of bankruptcy. ER abuse is a major and serious problem.

Hospital equipment is another problem we face. How often have you seen an ad in the paper informing you a certain hospital has a new MRI, etc. The competition has to end among health care facilities. Some of the old equipment works just fine. There has developed a competition among providers to have the shiniest and newest equipment. Why not have more co-operations among providers in the same area. Why does a small area of 10,000 people need three MRI’s?

We all know Medicare is hemorrhaging money due to fraudulent claims or payments that are misunderstood, badly coded or, indeed, illegal. This is happening to the tune of billions of dollars. Where’s a tourniquet when it’s needed? Who’s enforcing the rules?

Drug companies, insurance companies and the hospitals. There has to be billions of wasted dollars to be found. Do I want a system that demands the government runs health care? No. When was the last time you saw any government run agency, a veteran’s administration, a state bureaucracy or even a local agency run smoothly? Medical decisions should be made by medically trained individuals, not politicians. Reform is one thing. Total change is something else, so let’s all think of ways to improve our current system not totally replace it. Remember that old adage about throwing the baby out with the bath water. Well, my independent choice is the “baby” and I’m not willing to lose it. As an individual with many complicated health issues, I do not want some elected politician or bureaucrat deciding who I can see for treatment, do you? I don’t want a 2-10 hour wait in an ER when I need it, like they have in Canada, do you? I don’t want to be told I’m “too old, too young, too tall or too short” for a surgery if I need it.

Do we have trouble in our current system? Of course, we do but let’s go about it intelligently and with a plan that is well thought out. Let’s not rush something that will land us, forever, in a mess of bureaucracy and debt.

I can understand and think it’s a good idea for the government to perform oversight and come down hard with some rules for insurance, Medicare and drug companies. We have to tighten the runaway spending. Even the Mayo clinic has announced this is a bad plan. Have any of our legislators read this huge missive? Even the Congressional Budget office has said it will cost too much. Personally, I want to see a plan that is well thought out and one that I can believe in. What do you think we can do to improve our current system? Let me know, okay?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Falkner-Wood

Sue Falkner-Wood is a retired registered nurse living in Astoria, Ore., with her husband, who is also an R.N. Sue left nursing in 1990 due to chronic pain and other symptoms related to what was eventually...read more